2 Thursday, July 26, 2018 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com NEWS Phishing scam goes after U-M Weblogin credentials Fake payroll emails link to fraudulent Weblogin page By ALICE TRACEY Summer Daily News Editor A string of fraudulent payroll emails, distributed among University of Michigan community members on July 13, scammed some recipients into revealing their U-M online credentials. The messages directed recipients to a fake Weblogin page in an attempt to steal their passwords, a type of cyberattack known as phishing. U-M Safe Computing immediately released a notice warning the University community about the scam and outlining a plan for defusing the situation. In order to shut down the attack, information administrators blocked the IP address on U-M networks and took steps to digitally flag the site. They also worked to remove unopened scam emails from recipients’ mailboxes and helped affected employees change their passwords. In an email interview with The Daily, University Privacy Officer Sol Bermann, the interim U-M chief information security officer, said the University’s quick response helped contain the damage caused by the phishing attempt. “The U-M Information Assurance team quickly identified this phishing attack, and took a number of steps to quickly mitigate its effectiveness,” Bermann wrote. “Our team continues to improve on how we detect and rapidly respond to these sorts of threats, as a result, very very few U-M community members were affected by this attack.” Bermann suggested U-M faculty, employees and students learn more about phishing scams on the Safe Computing website, and also recommended turning on two-factor authentication at Weblogin. Team of researchers beats IBM’s record By ELIZABETH LAWRENCE Daily Staff Reporter A team of engineers at the University of Michigan has created a computer small enough to stand on the tip of a grain of rice. With a volume of 0.4 cubic millimeters, it holds the title of the world’s smallest computer, outdoing IBM’s most recent attempt. Because of its small size, there are limitations on what the device can actually do. But according to Xiao Wu, an Engineering doctorate student who worked on the project, the defining elements of a computer are all present. “It has basic components of a computer,” Wu said. “It has a microprocessor that’s (a) general purpose processor unit. It’s an Arm patent Cortex-M0+, so it’s a commercial processor. And it’s also got its own memory. So it’s a smaller and simpler version of a computer, but it’s got basic elements of the computer.” The computer is the product of many years of work, according to David Blaauw, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science who co-led the recent project and has been working on tiny computing since 2005. Throughout the years, his team has found ways to reduce power consumption of computer chips and circuits, enabling the development of smaller computers. Blaauw said with such low power consumption comes the challenge of figuring out how to make a computer run. “We consume, in standby mode when the sensor’s sort of dormant, a few nanoamps, whereas a cell phone would consume a few milliamps,” Blaauw said. “So it’s about a million times less than a cell phone power consumption in the same kind of dormant mode.” Blaauw said another challenge is that the computer can only be handled wirelessly. His team communicates with the computer though light signals, and also uses light to recharge it. Regular-size computers and cell phones are able to charge through wires, but the new computer is too small for any kind of connector. “We can’t just conveniently charge it, it has to charge itself with light or something like that,” Blaauw said. “It can’t sort of reprogram itself easily with the wire. You need to do it wirelessly. Everything needs to be done wirelessly; it’s very challenging.” ‘U’ builds world’s smallest computer 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1327 www.michigandaily.com ASIF BECHER Editor in Chief 734-418-4115 ext. 1251 asifb@michigandaily.com TOMMY DYE Business Manager 734-418-4115 ext. 1240 tomedye@michigandaily.com EDITORIAL STAFF Emma Richter Managing Editor richtere@michigandaily.com Grace Kay Managing News Editor news@michigandaily.com SENIOR NEWS EDITORS: Rachel Cunningham and Alice Tracey Emma Chang Editorial Page Editor tothedaily@michigandaily.com Tien Le & Jacob Kopnick Managing Sports Editors sportseditors@michigandaily.com Jack Brandon Managing Arts Editor arts@michigandaily.com Alec Cohen Managing Photo Editor photo@michigandaily.com Jack Silberman Managing Design Editor design@michigandaily.com Olivia Sedlacek Managing Copy Editor copydesk@michigandaily.com Lorna Brown Managing MiC Editor michiganincolor@michigandaily.com Carrington Tubman Managing Social Editor CONTACT INFORMATION Newsroom Office hours: Sun.-Thurs. 11 a.m. - 2 a.m. 734-763-2459 opt.3 News Tips news@michigandaily.com Corrections corrections@michigandaily.com Letters to the Editor tothedaily@michigandaily.com or visit michigandaily.com/letters Photo Department photo@michigandaily.com Arts Section arts@michigandaily.com Editorial Page opinion@michigandaily.com Sports Section sports@michigandaily.com Magazine statement@michigandaily.com Advertising Phone: 734-418-4115 Department dailydisplay@gmail.com Read more at MichiganDaily.com The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is published Monday through Friday during the fall and winter terms by students at the University of Michigan. 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